The King’s Vapor Bath

A king, seated within an arched steam chamber — a Laconicum, the classical vapor bath — is attended while heat and moisture work on him. The motto reads: "Rex balneatur in Laconico sedens, atrâque bile liberatur à Pharut" — the king, seated, is bathed in the Laconicum, and is freed from black bile by Pharut. In the prose that follows, the king is described as having grown melancholic and diminished among his fellow princes; the bath, prescribed by his physician, sweats the excess black bile from his body and restores his former dignity. Alchemically, the ailing king stood for a base or "sick" metal, and the therapeutic bath for the gentle, moist heat used to purge its impurities before it could be brought to a nobler state — medicine and metallurgy sharing a single cure.

Maker

Michael Maier (author); engraved by Matthäus Merian the Elder

Medium of the original

Engraving

Original held by

Wikimedia Commons

Credit

Wikimedia Commons · via Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-00514